Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she will cre­ate a pan fac­to­ry in T&T when she re­turns as Prime Min­is­ter.

Speak­ing at Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions held at South­ern Marines Pan The­atre at the Mara­bel­la Train­line on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was re­gret­table that T&T in­vent­ed the steel­pan but does not sell the in­stru­ment.

“If you want to buy a steel­pan right now you have to go to Japan to buy one. You think that is right?” she ques­tioned.

Say­ing she planned to work close­ly with Pantrin­ba­go to ex­pand steel­pan ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “The pan in schools pro­gramme was one way that my gov­ern­ment recog­nised the Steel­pan Move­ment. On our re­turn, we shall work close­ly with Pan Trin­ba­go to ex­pand this pro­gramme to in­clude the steel­pan fa­cil­i­ties in our com­mu­ni­ties that con­tin­ue to work with our youth.”

Not­ing that it was time that T&T made steel­pan in­to a rev­enue earn­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “We cre­at­ed the steel­pan. We must take it back in­to State own­er­ship and set up a fac­to­ry which can be a rev­enue earn­er for this coun­try. When we re­turn to Of­fice we will do it to­geth­er.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so paid trib­ute to the South­ern Marines Pan The­atre for its role in teach­ing pupils to play the steel­pan.

“I wish to ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of Mr Michael Joseph al­so known as Mr Sco­bie, who was the band­leader un­til he joined his an­ces­tors af­ter lead­ing the band in the last Panora­ma. His lega­cy is alive and well in his chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. I saw his grand­son Malakai per­form ex­pert­ly on the steel­pan to­day,” she added.

Stand­ing in a pa­n­yard, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “The steel­pan rep­re­sents the in­no­va­tion, lead­er­ship and con­nec­tion of the Africans to their roots. Af­ter eman­ci­pa­tion was won, the colo­nial pow­ers main­tained a ban on the African drum.

“It was the cre­ativ­i­ty and the will to re­sist com­bined that pro­duced what would be Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gift to the world, even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing our na­tion­al in­stru­ment,” she ex­plained.

She not­ed that the South­ern Ma­rine Pan The­atre has con­tin­ued to be a cen­tre of learn­ing and should be com­mend­ed. 

“I have been in­formed that it was un­der a pre­vi­ous Pan­day gov­ern­ment that much sup­port was ren­dered to erect this struc­ture, and I as­sure you that the ed­u­ca­tion of our chil­dren that con­tin­ues here is not un­no­ticed,” she said.

She added: “The steel­pan fra­ter­ni­ty is full of un­sung he­roes like the band­leader present to­day Mal­o­mo Joseph. You take chil­dren on the va­ca­tion and from your pock­et at your own ex­pense, you train them in pan mak­ing, cre­at­ing a vir­tu­al pan fac­to­ry. You train the chil­dren to play the steel­pan pro­vid­ing an av­enue of in­come for your young charges and giv­ing them a ca­reer start.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said mem­bers of the UNC who are Or­isha or Ifa devo­tees have re­mind­ed her that Ogun is the Or­isha de­ity at­trib­ut­able to ma­nip­u­lat­ing met­al. 

“There­fore, in this pa­n­yard, we are not on­ly in a place of won­der­ful in­no­va­tion, but we are al­so in a sa­cred space for Africans who pre­served their be­lief sys­tem,” she said. 

She paid trib­ute to promi­nent Afro-Trinida­di­ans of the past in­clud­ing El­ma Fran­cois, Em­manuel Muzum­bo Lazare, Hen­ry Sylvester-Williams and George Pad­more who was in­volved in the Pan African­ism move­ment which was an at­tempt to cre­ate a sense of broth­er­hood and col­lab­o­ra­tion among all peo­ple of African de­scent whether they lived in­side or out­side of Africa.

Al­so at­tend­ing the cel­e­bra­tions were Kasala Ka­ma­ra, founder of the San­do Ed­u­ca­tion­al Work­shop, and Aiye­goro Ome, founder of the Sin­hue Cen­tre and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC).